Page 43 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

Changing Definitions of Politics and Power 29

material consequences of failing to make use of market forces, whether
in education, personal development, work, or any other “ life - style choice. ”
The entrepreneurial self is free in that s/he understands her/himself to be
self - governing and oriented towards self - realization, but s/he is under the
imperative to manage her/himself correctly, according to increasingly fi ne -
tuned standards that are set by economic and social management practices
over which s/he has no control (Rose, 1990, 1999 ).
The direct infl uence Foucault ’ s work has had on contemporary political
sociology cannot be over - estimated. His ideas on discipline, the interrela-
tion of knowledge and power, and more recently on governmentality,
have directed attention toward the exercise of power in practices and the
formation of identities across the social fi eld. Once we begin to look at
the world through the lenses Foucault provides for us, conventional poli-
tics at the level of the state is displaced to the periphery of vision and
other forms of politics come into focus.
However, a Foucauldian analytics of power is not all that is needed to
understand the range of engagements with hierarchy and exclusion that
concern contemporary political sociologists. And the way in which con-
temporary political sociology sees power and politics as signifi cant across

the social field is not solely due to the influence of Foucault ’ s work.
Indeed Foucault ’ s “ analytics of power ” is limited with respect to what we
might call “ positive ” political projects, those that make demands for
equality, whether of redistribution, recognition, or representation (see
Fraser, 1997, 2008 ). Whilst, as we noted above, Foucault ’ s critique of
power may have became more nuanced as he introduced the idea of the

“ free subject, ” reflexive in relation to concrete possibilities of action, it is
very diffi cult to envisage any kind of worthwhile politics other than resis-
tance from within a Foucauldian framework. Successful demands for a
bigger share of collective resources, more respect for particular groups,
or a different democratic system, necessarily involve closing down other
social possibilities, whether by state regulation or something “ softer, ”
like disallowing certain ways of talking and acting. But it is just such
demands that have been so important to social movements and to chal-
lenges to extend citizenship and democracy with which contemporary
political sociology is concerned. In the Foucauldian framework, all “ posi-
tive ” demands that are realized through collective enforcement involve
the solidifying of power into domination to a greater or lesser extent; it
is only through resistance that power remains fluid. It is unsurprising in

this respect that Foucault himself became more interested in ethics than
in politics.